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rebels. Archie tries to bribe the officers, but they respond by saying that charges will
be brought against Archie, Troy, and Chief Elgin. In an epilogue, the film states
that the three surviving soldiers (Archie, Troy, and Chief Elgin) have been cleared
of the charges and honorably discharged, thanks to Adriana’s reporting. The epi-
logue goes on to show Archie and Chief working for Hollywood as military advi-
sors and Troy back home with his family, running a carpet store. The stolen gold
has been given back to Kuwait, which claims that some is missing, implying that
some pilfering has occurred.
Reception
Three Kings had its U.S. premiere on 27 September 1999— eight years after the
first Gulf War (1990–91) and three and a half years before the Second Gulf War
(2003–2011). The movie went into general domestic release on 1 October 1999. It
grossed $60.7 million domestically and $47.1 million in foreign markets for a world-
wide total of $107.8 million: a very handsome profit. Three Kings also received
almost universal critical acclaim. Roger Ebert gave the film four stars out of four
and said that “Three Kings is one of the most surprising and exciting movies I’ve
seen this year... a weird masterpiece, a screw- loose war picture that sends action
and humor crashing head-on into each other and spinning off into po liti cal anger”
(Ebert, 4 October 1999). David Edelstein also sang the movie’s praises and noted
that its exciting, audacious visual style has already been expropriated by the U.S.
military for promotional purposes: “Even if someone regards Mr. Russell as a pro-
pagandist for the enemy, it hasn’t stopped the military from swiping his visual pal-
ette and his syntax [for recruitment ads]... What ever ele ments of Three Kings
may have been appropriated for militaristic ends, however, the original will never
lose its power to shock. It remains the most caustic anti- war movie of this genera-
tion” (Edelstein, 2003). President Bill Clinton screened Three Kings at the White
House on 14 October 1999 and, according to Roger Ebert, instantly became one
of its biggest fans. “ ‘I loved it,’ Clinton said, ‘ because it accomplished all these dif-
fer ent things. It’s a great cheap- thrills movie. Clooney’s unbelievable— the screen
loves him, and all the other guys are good. It’s a tragedy as well as a comedy...
And they tell the very sad story that our country has to come to terms with—of
how we falsely raised the hopes of Shiites in the south of Iraq. And what has been
done to them since then... It’s an atrocity what Saddam Hussein did to them’ ”
(Ebert, 3 February 2000). Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush, had a dif fer ent take
on the outcome of the First Gulf War. When Russell met Bush in 1999 and said he
was editing a film he’d just made that would question his father’s legacy in Iraq,
Bush replied, “Then I guess I’m going to have to finish the job, aren’t I?”
Reel History Versus Real History
Three Kings tells a fictional story but from a historically truthful premise. David O.
Russell:
When I started investigating the war I only knew the official story— that we
went to the Middle East and kicked Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. But when